Japanese Language Learning and Teaching During COVID-19: Challenges and Opportunities

Before COVID-19, language learning was undergoing technology-driven change, including classroom delivery through blended learning and opportunities for autonomous learning through online affordances. The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated these trends, forcing educators and students to diversify into new forms of online teaching and learning. In this article we reflect on our experiences teaching Japanese language during the first year of the pandemic at an internationalised metropolitan university and, subsequently, in regional universities in Australia. Importantly, our observations highlight the difficulty of replicating face-to-face classroom encounters and the differing experiences of our students during this crisis. We reflect on the importance of building learning communities online, the possibilities presented by the digital wilds and the value of self-access learning materials as the roles of students and teachers evolve. Our experiences contribute to a dialogue on the future for Japanese language teaching as challenges and opportunities uncovered by the COVID-19 crisis continue to play out in the higher education sector. We identify possibilities for better integration between Japanese language learning, technology and students’ interests and needs through strategic teaching of Japanese digital discourse. By engaging with online language use we observe new opportunities to reimagine the Japanese tertiary language class for the future.